New to this Diesel thing
 

As stated in title. I am an aircraft mech but have been turning wrenches since I was 13. I use to drive OTR but I had Detroit's and Cat's in all my trucks.

I just got a 2000 Dodge 3500 with 230,000 miles for FREE. DOES not run, needs tires batteries and a front bumper.

It will fire with some help but that is all. I will be checking fuel pressures this coming weekend. I am thinking it is the injector pump since I purged the pressure from the fuel filter and it sounds like an electric pump kicks in and charges it.

Any ideas on things to check would be GREAT.

The ISB Cummins does use an electric lift pump, and sometimes if they are weak it will kill the Injection pump, or cause a no start/hard start. But the lift pump should operate at 18-20PSI at idle or when you have it charging, and no less than 8-10psi at Wide open throttle. I would also try to check compression but you say it fires with help, what kind of help? Ether? Also make sure your tack is responding when you are canking because it is ran by the cam sensor thru the ecm, and if the ecm does not get info from the cam it will not let the pump kick on and fire.

Well even if the injection pump is out I will be upgrading the lift pump, I'm just not sure what way to go on it. I will be using the truck to haul a 33 foot trailer, a 20 foot toy box or a 3 place horse trailer. Not really needing HI Performance but I do not want the kids or my better half to worry when they are using it to haul the horses for a barrel race.

OK tried to bleed air out of the #3 injector line and nothing came out. Tried about 5 times. I did pull codes, all were pending and set. SNAP-ON did not come through on fuel pressure gauges for me, so I have no idea on fuel PSI.
P0237
0253
1689
1688

The P0237 is the map sensor which say underboost this may clear up more when you run it for a period of time. The p0253 is ususally the Vp44 death code meaning that it has said good bye to ya but it runs when you start it with ether correct? and the rest are generally with the po253 code. When you start it can you drive it or does it only idle... If it only idles and wont acceleate then its most likely the injection pump

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also when bleeding the best thing to do is open 1,3,4 and it sometimes takes me an excess of 6-10 times of charging the lift pump to get fuel and then cranks for about 30seconds. As long as you can get fuel to 3 cylinders the engine will run, but if there is no fuel reaching the injectors then its most likely the injection pump.

if you think its a fuel issue check out blue chip diesel. it tells you everything you can think of about fueling problems. take a look and see if it helps.

Replace the lift pump with a raptor or fass, also another thing that I found out with my truck is that you need the motor to spin over fast enough for the injection pump to build enough pressure. Check your batteries and also your starter, my truck would have a hard time starting after it was warm and it ended up being a worn starter motor.

Sorry about not getting back in a while. It finally cooled down this past weekend. I have fuel at the injector pump but not past it, the pressure is not the greatest so I am thinking the lift pump had started to fail and that took out the injector pump. I just want to THANK EVERYONE FOR THERE HELP. I will be getting the FASS pump in a few weeks and get that on, then do the injector pump. Its a slow process since I am 150 miles from the truck.